I'm looking at the Harper Voyager E-book Open Submissions and plan to submit one of my unsold manuscripts. It needs a fresh set of eyes to look it over and say what works/doesn't, and possibly to suggest a way to tighten up the ending. Also, it may need more scope. (It's a fantasy novel with one hero and two heroines, of the "survivors of an attack band together and work to enact revenge" flavor. There may need to be more about the various cultures to make it read more like epic fantasy.) It also currently has quite a bit of sex in it. I'd be interested in hearing another take on if some of that should be cut or minimized.

So, any takers?

I am creating a sample website, which I will be submitting to a blog sharing website. To do this, it has to have a bunch of articles on it already, not written by me. I'm looking for at least 8 articles, each of which can contain two links to your website, blog, or other place you'd like to direct traffic.

The website will be promoted and attract attention from the general (i.e. non-writing) population. The articles will be indexed and available on the site in perpetuity.

If you're interested, please comment. I'll screen the comments so no one can read them.

ETA: Articles don't have to be new. Just not widely circulated on the 'net already. See comment for additional info.

Sometimes, it takes a day or so to let feelings really settle. I was fine yesterday morning, until I learned that the movie theater where the shooting took place is the one where we take Honeybear's mom. I was pretty much in shock the rest of the day... I'd just been there! All the sense memories of the theater rose up, now with fear and horror superimposed, and I totally shut down. This morning, Honeybear and I crafted a blog post for his new business blog about our reactions, and how important connection is.

There was another post planned for today. But in light of what happened early Friday morning in Aurora, I couldn't bring myself to post a lighthearted, perky sales article. Later that day, I had lunch with one of the firefighters who had responded at the scene. He provided the human detail that news coverage never does --

Still kinda shocky. Having dinner this weekend with Honeybear's sister, who works as a patient advocate at the hospital where many of the victims were taken. Will drive past theater to get there. It's really kind of amazing -- or maybe it isn't -- how many ripples a single event can have.

So this weekend, I go out to cook some burgers on the grill... and when I open up the lid of the grill, there are FOUR wasp nests inside, absolutely CRAWLING with wasps!

Naturally, I did what any sane person would do. I screamed and ran back inside. :-) After doing some internet research, Honeybear determined the thing to do was to roast the wasps, so he went back out at night while they were sleeping, and lit the grill, then let them cook for half an hour.

Honeybear is my hero. :-)

In other news, I learned about a great tool that authors can use to make spiffy book trailers themselves. See an example (well, it's not a book trailer, but you can see that the same thing would work for book trailers) at Page Rank Rocket. The company is Animoto, and you can get a 30-second spot for free, or pay $5 for longer spots. Given that book trailers cost at least 10 times that, it's a very affordable DIY option.

I have a friend who runs a writing service... they do a lot of SEO articles, blog posts, and other stuff like that for companies that want to post content on their websites but don't have the time or skill to do it themselves. Generally, it pays $.01 a word, which isn't great, but equates to a decent hourly wage if you're a fast writer. Rush articles or articles requiring researched footnotes pay more.

Her company is getting a rep for the quality work they deliver, and as a result, she has *way* more work than she has writers. I told her I'd put the word out amongst you guys, in case any of you were interested.

If you are, she'll give you a trial assignment for which you'll be paid, regardless of whether or not she uses it. If she likes what she sees, she'll give you a lot more assignments... as many as you feel comfortable handling, whether that's 500 words a day or 5,000.

So, if you're interested, let me know and I'll send you her email address. LJ comments are screened so you can include your email address without everyone seeing it.

It's almost the end of February! Where did the time go?

Honeybear and I have been very busy with our Avatar work -- we went down to Daytona Beach for two weeks in January/February to complete our Wizards training. When we got back, we had two people (a friend and Honeybear's mom) who wanted to know more, so we got them enrolled in the local Resurfacing workshop, where they had some amazing insights and breakthroughs. Honeybear's mom, in particular, had an amazing transformation considering how resistant she was to most of the process. (And I now know where his tendency to take a nap when faced with unpleasantness comes from.)

I've also been helping my friend the "Blender King" with a new venture -- cookbooks for blenders! Check out the first one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0070GPG4C/ It's currently selling for $.99, but will shortly be rising in price to $2.99 once it has an established track record at Amazon. So, if you'd like to try 45 healthy breakfasts for a blender, pick up a copy now. (Reviews are greatly appreciated.)

The awesome and important book I've been hinting at and obliquely mentioning for two years now is finally available!

New Money for a New World, or, as I like to think of it, how to solve all the world's financial crises by fundamentally rethinking the nature of money, by Belgin and Lietaer. (And edited by honeybear.) It is available in 3 formats -- Kindle for $9.95, Softcover for $29.95, and Hardcover for $34.95.

For more info, visit http://www.newmoneyforanewworld.com/.

For anyone following this blog that is NOT on LiveJournal, I apologize in advance, but the super-high level of spam was finally too much for me, and I've closed the comments to anonymous users.

I don't understand why, when you look at recent comments to your LJ, it does NOT show potential spam, and there's no way to find the potential spam other than looking post by post to see if there's spam in the spam-filter. That is just a STUPID way of doing it. Yes, they send email of possible spam, and yes, I can delete it from the email, but if I miss the email? Which, given the volume of mail that flows through my account, is pretty much a given it will happen eventually. So the stuff just stays out there until someone else spams the same post, and I see it.

So, I'm giving up, and only registered users can comment. Sorry, people who were logged on from elsewhere and didn't have an LJ username. The spammers won.

Woot! So, I'm taking this AI class through Stanford's distance education program -- not for credit, it's an experimental class to see how the delivery mechanism works for them. But other than that, I believe it's pretty much the same as the in-person class.

This weekend was the midterm. It was "open book" (or, in this case, open video lecture). We just got the results back, and I scored a 91%. I am feeling pretty stoked. Especially since I never bothered getting the text book. ;-)

What's amazing to me is that my Master's degree was in AI, back in the dark ages. And all this stuff that's being presented in the Intro level class? Most of it hadn't been invented yet when I was studying the field. I mean, Logic? Yeah, sure. But all the other stuff? It's the first time I'm hearing about it. (And the section on probability? It's even weirder than regular probability.)

My book, "Illicit Programming", the erotic SF romance about two people from a communal society who rediscover pair-bond love, has been named the Deal of the Day at Eros Books.

Starting promptly at 11am on Thursday, a limited number of copies will be available for $.99. They are sold on a first come, first served basis, so don't be late!